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PFBC Celebrates 150th Anniversary
HARRISBURG,
Pa. (March 18) - The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) will
commemorate and celebrate the 150th anniversary of its founding as one
of the nation’s oldest conservation agencies during this month’s
quarterly business meeting and at a special public event at the State
Museum in Harrisburg.
The
PFBC’s quarterly business meeting will be held on March 30-31 at the
Harrisburg headquarters. The meeting was specifically scheduled to
coincide with the agency’s founding on March 30, 1866. Following
committee meetings on March 30, Commissioners and staff will join
invited guests, members of the public, legislators, and Gov. Tom Wolf at
the State Museum for presentations about the agency’s celebrated
history and discussions about its future.
The
evening event will be held on Wednesday, March 30, from 6-8 p.m. at the
State Museum, located at 300 North Street. It is free and the public is
encouraged to
attend and meet past and present Commissioners and learn more about the agency’s history.
“Over the course of the next year, I invite fellow anglers and boaters to join in our commemoration of the last 150 years,” said
PFBC Executive Director John Arway, who was named the Commission’s 10th
executive director on March 2, 2010, and has worked for the agency for
36 years. “It
will be a great time to learn about our agency’s contribution to the
health of Penn’s woods and waters and celebrate the fact that our 86,000
miles of streams, nearly 4,000 lakes and reservoirs, over 404,000 acres
of wetlands and 63 miles of Lake Erie shoreline are still home to more
than 25,000 species of known plants and animals, and perhaps, many
thousands more yet to be identified.”
“These
facts demonstrate the enormity and complexity of the challenges that
face the PFBC as we strive to fulfill our legislative and Constitutional
duties to protect, conserve and enhance our Commonwealth’s aquatic
resources,” he added.
“Pennsylvania’s
abundance of waterways, from mountain streams and lakes, to mighty
rivers like the Susquehanna and Allegheny, to the Great Lake Erie,
provide endless recreational opportunities to the Commonwealth’s anglers
and boaters,” added PFBC Board President Edward Mascharka, III. “These
opportunities wouldn’t be here without the hard work and dedication over
the last 150 years by this agency to protect and conserve our natural
resources. I’m proud to be a part of this rich history and look forward
to carrying forth our mission into the future.”
Over
the last 150 years, the Commission has evolved from a one-man operation
funded solely by the general fund to an agency with a complement of 432
staff funded by anglers and boaters through license and registration
fees and federal excise taxes on fishing and boating equipment.
The
origins of the PFBC date to 1866 when a convention was held in
Harrisburg to investigate water pollution being caused by the wholesale
logging of Pennsylvania’s forests and the impacts caused by
sedimentation of mountain lakes and streams. There were also serious
concerns about the reduction of American Shad runs in the Susquehanna
River. This discussion resulted in Governor Andrew Curtin signing into
law Act of March 30, 1866 (P.L. 370, No. 336), which named James Worrall
Pennsylvania’s first Commissioner of Fisheries.
In
1925, Act 1925-263 established the Board of Fish Commissioners. Then,
in 1949, Act 1949-180 officially established the Pennsylvania Fish
Commission as an agency and described its powers and duties. The
Commission appointed Charles A. French as its first executive director
in 1949, and in 1991 under Act 1991-39, the Pennsylvania Fish Commission
became the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.
“Our
future is bright but not without challenges,” added Arway. “We have
made substantial progress over the last generation by cleaning up our
waters so that we can now say that we have more waters to fish today
than when we were children. However, yesterday’s challenges were simple
compared to the environmental and natural resource challenges that we
face in the future.”
“Our
new challenges will no longer be at the local scale but will require
much different solutions at the watershed, regional, national and even
global scales,” he added. “We will have to work across disciplines and
use the appropriate science to diagnose the problems, apply the
engineering skills to develop the solutions and have the political will
to create the laws and provide the funding for the solutions.”
For more information about the 150th Anniversary, including a chronology of events and historic photographs, please visit http://fishandboat.com/150th.htm.
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